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Last 2 victims found after deadly Old Montreal fire

Firefighters have been carefully sorting through the rubble to find victims of the March 16 fire.  (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press - image credit)
Firefighters have been carefully sorting through the rubble to find victims of the March 16 fire. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press - image credit)

Montreal police say the last two victims of a deadly fire that ripped through an Old Montreal heritage building have been found — bringing the total of dead recovered to seven.

Insp. David Shane said Monday afternoon that the bodies retrieved from the rubble of the 15-unit, multi-use building that went up in flames March 16 will be sent to a laboratory to be formally identified.

Police said a Quebec coroner also confirmed Monday the identity of four more victims: Dania Zafar, 32, Saniya Khan, 32, Nathan Sears, 35, and An Wu, 31.

Zafar, a Pakistani national living in Toronto, was visiting Montreal and staying on the third floor of the building the night it caught fire, according to her family. In a recent interview with CBC, her father, back in Pakistan, described her as a dreamer.

Submitted by Zafar Mahmood
Submitted by Zafar Mahmood

"She wanted to do things in her own way," said Zafar Mahmood. "I think she was at the wrong place at the wrong time with all the odds against her and we lost her," he said through tears.

Khan, who was studying medicine in Detroit, was best friends with Zafar. They had met as children in Pakistan and were inseparable, Saniya's father, Mazhar Khan, said in a recent interview.

Khan described his daughter as a selfless person who always thought of others.

"I feel like part of my body, part of my heart is gone," he said.

Submitted by Mazhar Khan
Submitted by Mazhar Khan

Sears, an academic from Toronto who holds a PhD in political science, was in town for the International Studies Association conference held at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel.

Sears was listed as having taken part in the International Studies Association conference held in Montreal the week of the fire. "We are all devastated," University of Toronto professor Steven Bernstein, who was Sears's PhD thesis supervisor, wrote in an email.

Wu, a neuroscientist from San Diego, is remembered by friends and family remembered her as a devoted scientist and a gifted scholar.

She was in Montreal to participate in an academic conference about computational neuroscience.

Nathan Sears
Nathan Sears

Last Wednesday, police confirmed the identity of the first victim whose body was found as 76-year-old Camille Maheux.

Maheux was a renowned photographer and filmmaker, who had lived in a loft on the second floor for about 30 years, according to Marik Boudreau, a friend and colleague.

Still not identified is 18-year-old Charlie Lacroix, according to her grandfather. Robert Lacas says his granddaughter had called 911 from inside the building as the fire raged, stuck in a unit with no windows.

"She was a happy little girl — beautiful and happy," Lacas said in a recent interview. He is calling for an investigation into the building's safety.

Submitted by Pantong Yao
Submitted by Pantong Yao

A recent CBC report found that, prior to going up in flames, the building — located near the corner of Place d'Youville and St-Nicolas Street — was considered "a fire trap" by worried renters.

The building housed long-term and short-term rentals, including Airbnbs, which are prohibited in this area of Old Montreal under a bylaw adopted in 2018.

So far, four out of five fire victims are said to have been staying in Airbnbs, according to their families.

Airbnb said last week that it plans to remove all Quebec listings that have not been authorized by the provincial government.

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Montreal fire operations chief Martin Guilbault said a team of search dogs began helping to comb through the rubble Saturday to locate the victims. A border collie and a German shepherd helped find the fifth body on Saturday as well as the last two on Monday.

"We could not use the dogs before because of the instability of the building and the risk of collapse," Guilbault said.

He says there is no reason to believe there are other victims in the rubble and that the fire department will now focus on trying to determine the cause of the fire.